EDITORS’ NOTES

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

EDITORS’ NOTES

Drama. Tension. Glory. The master composes a seventh epic score for the series.

TITLE

TIME

Main Title and the Attack on the Jakku Village

6:25

The Scavenger

3:39

I Can Fly Anything

3:10

Rey Meets BB-8

1:31

Follow Me

2:54

Rey's Theme

3:11

The Falcon

3:32

That Girl with the Staff

1:58

The Rathtars!

4:05

Finn's Confession

2:08

Maz's Counsel

3:07

The Starkiller

1:50

Kylo Ren Arrives at the Battle

2:00

The Abduction

2:23

Han and Leia

4:41

March of the Resistance

2:34

Snoke

2:03

On the Inside

2:06

Torn Apart

4:19

The Ways of the Force

3:14

Scherzo for X-Wings

2:32

Farewell and the Trip

4:55

The Jedi Steps and Finale

8:51

23 Songs, 1 Hour, 17 Minutes

℗ 2015 Lucasfilm Ltd.

About John Williams

The most popular film composer of the modern era, John Williams created music for some of the most successful motion pictures in Hollywood history -- Star Wars, E.T. the Extra Terrestrial, Jurassic Park and Harry Potter are just four of the credits in his extensive oeuvre. Born February 8, 1932, in Floral Park, New York, he was the son of a movie studio musician, and he followed in his father's footsteps by studying music at UCLA and Juilliard; initially, he pursued a career as a jazz pianist, later working with Henry Mancini to compose the score for the hit television series Peter Gunn. Williams then went solo to pen a number of TV soundtracks for series including Playhouse 90, Wagon Train, and Bachelor Father; in 1959 he ventured into film with Daddy-O, and spent the majority of the 1960s alternating between the silver screen (The Killers, The Plainsman) and its smaller counterpart (Gilligan's Island, Lost in Space).

In 1968 Williams earned his first Academy Award nomination for his work in Valley of the Dolls; in 1970, he garnered nods for both The Reivers and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and two years later finally won for Fiddler on the Roof. A slew of Oscar nominations followed, for features including The Poseidon Adventure, Images, Tom Sawyer, and The Towering Inferno.

In 1980, Williams took over for the late Arthur Fiedler as the conductor of the Boston Pops, a position he would hold until 1993, when he passed the baton to Keith Lockhart.

Over much of his career, two major relationships helped cement Williams' iconic legacy in film and music. In 1974 he teamed with a young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg for the first time on a movie titled The Sugarland Express. Over the coming decades, the two frequently reteamed, often with stunning results -- Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Empire of the Sun, Indiana Jones, E.T., Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, and War Horse were some of the Spielberg/Williams pairings, with Jaws, E.T. and Schindler's List all winning the composer Academy Awards. Notably, Williams has scored every Spielberg film with only two exceptions: 1985's The Color Purple and 2015's Bridge of Spies. The pair continued their collaborative magic for 2016's adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic The BFG. In 2017, their partnership was anthologized with John Williams & Steven Spielberg: The Ultimate Collection.

Williams' other frequent collaborator was George Lucas; beginning with 1977's Star Wars -- yet another Williams Oscar winner -- they later teamed for 1980's The Empire Strikes Back and 1983's Return of the Jedi (with the composer agreeing to score Lucas' Star Wars prequel trilogy as they went into production in 1997). A decade after the final prequel film, 2005's Revenge of the Sith, Williams returned to the beloved universe -- this time with J.J. Abrams in the director's chair -- scoring the first installment of the sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, in 2015. The second film in the planned trilogy, 2017's The Last Jedi, also featured a score by Williams.

Other film scores of note included 1979's Superman, 1987's The Witches of Eastwick, 1988's The Accidental Tourist, 1991's JFK, 1995's Nixon, 1997's Amistad, and the entire Harry Potter film series. His Grammy wins include Jaws, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Superman, Indiana Jones, E.T., Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Angela's Ashes, Memoirs of a Geisha, Munich, and The Book Thief.

In addition to receiving the Olympic Order award from the International Olympic Committee in 2003 and the National Medal of Arts at the White House in 2009, Williams was the first composer to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in 2016. ~ Jason Ankeny & Neil Z. Yeung